Except 1/3 of that (the post-Danny 1/3) was AWESOME.
The Peter Capaldi era
- Thread starter Gingerbread Demon
- Start date
Except 1/3 of that (the post-Danny 1/3) was AWESOME.
I used to hate on Clara a lot but lately I don't find her so bad
Clara worked well with Matt Smith, where the two of them played off a mutual attraction to each other that made them interesting to watch together. They took that away with Capaldi, and as a result Clara seemed to lose something.
I'm not a fan of the idea of the Doctor having any kind of attraction to companions, or vice versa
I liked Clara far more in both of her Capaldi seasons. And Crazy Clara With Nothing Left to Lose was amazing to watch.
One of my favorite exchanges (and I'll paraphrase) was in Capaldi's first episode:
"I'm not your boyfriend."
"I never said you were."
"I never said it was your mistake."
I agree; I think it was Moffat who said at the time something along the lines of that when you saw Eleven/Matt, you expected to see Amy/Karen with him, but Twelve/Peter and Clara/Jenna stood on their own.
For me, the screwball dialogue between them coded them, in a 1940s Hayes Code way, as doing the bumpity-wumpity. When the TARDIS is a-rockin', don't come a-knockin'...
Except she did. The episode before, he was going to pretend to be her boyfriend with her family at Christmas dinner. Then Trenzalore happened...
It's a nice dialogue exchange -- and I feel it supports rather than detracts from the screwball, Hayes Code read of 11/Clara -- but I also don't buy it. The problem, for me, is not whether or not the Doctor and Clara were intimate friends with blurred boundaries. Rather, it's that the Doctor is talking about a relationship between them that, for him, was nine hundred years in his past. Moffat stuck the Doctor on the slow path on Trenzalore for nine hundred years, fighting every imaginable evil in the universe, and then he treats it like it didn't happen. Clara, really, is (or should be) a stranger to him at this point, and picking up where they left off isn't realistic.
Right. He was all excited and she was all "Shut up! You're not really!" ("Oh, that was quick. It's a roller coaster this phone call." Still one of my favorite lines ever and Matt Smith was a genius. Probably still is.)
Very good point. But this isn't the first sci-fi character who lived a lengthy if not eternal timey-wimey lifetime and then came back like almost nothing had happened. (Inner Light anyone?) It's not realistic. I get it.
I mean, how long between Tom Baker and David Tennant and yet Sarah still takes his breath away the moment he sees her?
I never thought about it this way: 11 gets her back! (Not even thinking as a romance.) He wins! Only to have it all snatched away from him in the same moment. (Good heavens I love Time of the Doctor.) And then poor 12 is left with the aftermath.
"You can't see me can you? You look at me and you can't see me. Have you any idea what that's like? I'm not on the phone. I'm right here standing in front of you. Please. Just just see me."
If I didn't love him already that was the moment I fell in love with 12.
"I.. I don't think that I'm a hugging person now." Awwwwww!
That's the moment I always look for in any regeneration story, when the new Doctor has the old Doctor peek through, just to make it clear that it's still the same person behind the eyes, they just look different. Capaldi really reveled in doing that, like when he was talking to himself in "Mummy on the Orient Express" and "other Doctor" was clearly Tom Baker.
I think that's part of the reason some people in charge aren't huge fans of multi-Doctor stories, it's very hard to thread the needle of these being the same person, and the younger, fresher ones really being the older ones. At least a line or two (Five waving off the First Doctor by explaining that he's mellowed in his old age), though better if it's a runner through the whole thing, as in "Day of the Doctor."
Twelve and hugging...
At the climax of Titan Comics' Tenth Doctor Year Three comics, one of the tenth Doctor's companions, Gabby, falls through the TARDIS doors and into the Vortex. She is pulled through the TARDIS doors... and she's in the twelfth Doctor's TARDIS. (She's met him twice before. Multi-Doctor shenanigans.) Gabby hugs him, he says he's not a hugger... and he hugs her back. Not going to lie, I got kinda emotional.
I wish Titan had been able to do stories of Twelve and Gabby, because I'd have liked to see what they'd have been like together, just as I'd have liked to see George Mann do more with Twelve and Julie d'Aubigny than just her intro story.
I thought Matt Smith handled that very effectively in "Day of the Doctor." He's playing the older and (theoretically) wiser Doctor, but he allows his "younger" predecessors the space to work things out. I think my favorite scene of that is when they're working out the Zygon plan, and you can see that he knows, and when Hurt and Tennant figure it out he shows a find of fatherly pride.
Last edited:
Except, she worked best with Capaldi's Doctor.
(full disclosure, though, she's the second best NuWho companion IMO, after Donna and before 9-era Rose and Amy, so obviously she was a great companion all around, again IMO)
Bill Potts was amazing. While Clara isn't as bad as I thought when she was brand new Bill is better but we only had her around for a very short time. I'm not a fan of romantic entanglements, not on this show please. In fact I find it icky to think the Doctor and any companion might be fucking? Yuck
Absolutely on board. Except:
Bill- But, hey er, you know how I'm usually all about women and, and kind of people my own age?
Doctor- (Confused) Yeah?
Bill- (Loses her nerve) Glad you knew that!
How adorbes was that?
That was a cute moment. Wasn't there another episode where she blurts out "I'm a lesbian?"
I didn't remember that but it sounds familiar.
I assume the Doctor and River had, erm, marital relations....
Yes but they're married so it would only be natural
'Hell Bent' reverses the scene. Clara is standing right in front of the Doctor, but he can't see her. It must be heartbreaking for her.
